A marker takes the colour of the side it landed on — blue toward the left pole,
orange toward the right. The shape says which tradition; the colour never does.
The rails draw the classical Pentecostal denominations, the Assemblies of God, the Church of God and the Church of God in Christ, against independent charismatic churches of the Vineyard kind, with a one-word name and no denomination on the sign. The renewal that stayed inside Anglican and Catholic parishes is a third thing, and Reformed charismatics are drawn separately.
What they share
The gifts, without qualification. Both sit at the continuationist edge of the map: prophecy, healing, words of knowledge and tongues are expected now, not filed away in the first century.
Worship built around singing and praying for people. A band, a long stretch of worship, a sermon from an open Bible, and time at the end when people come forward to be prayed for by name.
The Table as a remembrance. In both, the bread and the cup remember Christ's death rather than carrying grace themselves, and baptism is for people old enough to ask for it.
Scripture alone. No bishop, no synod, no creed a congregation must sign. Both land in the same band on authority.
Where they differ
Both sides below are stated the way people who hold them would state them. Landing in
the same band is not agreeing, and landing in different ones is not a verdict.
Pentecostal bodies commit themselves here, in writing. The Assemblies of God names the Blessed Hope, the church caught up to meet the Lord before the tribulation, and a millennial reign of Christ on earth that includes the salvation of national Israel. Israel and the church are kept distinct, which is what dispensational means, and God's promises to the nation are expected to be kept literally. A Pentecostal church watches the news out of the Middle East with prophecy in mind.
Charismatic
balanced on Israel and the church
Charismatic churches mostly decline the question, and the rail sits in the middle because nothing pulls it either way: there is usually no statement to consult and prophecy charts are rarely preached. What these churches did absorb is a reading of the kingdom of God as already begun and not yet finished, a claim about now rather than a timetable for later. John Wimber turned it into a reason to pray for a sick person immediately: if the kingdom has broken in, some of its effects should be visible before the end.
In plain wordsOne side has a map of the future written down; the other is far more interested in what the Holy Spirit is doing this afternoon.
Pentecostals stand at the far edge of the free-response side. Grace comes first and reaches everyone, each person has to say yes, and most Pentecostal bodies hold that someone who has genuinely believed can later walk away. Assurance is real, but it is not a sealed verdict, and that shapes the preaching: the call to come forward is not only for people who have never believed.
Charismatic
synergist-leaning
Charismatic churches lean the same way and stop a little short of the edge, and the honest reason is that there is often nothing to read. Most teach that God's grace comes first and makes faith possible, and that each person must answer and may decline. But a church with no confession and no denomination can land almost anywhere, and the ones that are Reformed as well as charismatic are drawn separately on the Compass.
In plain wordsBoth hold that God moves first and that you must answer; the Pentecostal answer is written down, and the charismatic one depends on the church down the road.
Beyond the compass
The Compass measures six things, not everything. These differences are real and
sit outside all six.
What baptism in the Spirit means
This is the real dividing line, and the gifts axis cannot show it: both sides sit at the same end of it. Classical Pentecostals teach that baptism in the Holy Spirit is a distinct experience after conversion and that speaking in tongues is its initial physical sign, and they read it out of Acts, where the Spirit falls and tongues follow. Charismatics treat tongues as one gift among many, given to some and not to others, and they read Paul's run of questions in 1 Corinthians 12, do all prophesy, do all speak with tongues, as expecting the answer no. Everything else on this page is smaller than that.
A denomination, or none
The Compass measures what a church teaches, not how it is put together, and the two are built differently. A Pentecostal church has a denominational name on the sign, a statement of faith you can read in ten minutes, credentialed ministers, districts and a general council. An independent charismatic church may have none of it: a one-word name, elders it chose itself, and usually no document that would tell you what it actually teaches. That is what makes these churches quick to plant and hard to generalise about.
Why they pray for the sick
Both pray for healing, for different reasons. The Assemblies of God sums its teaching up in four cardinal doctrines, salvation, baptism in the Holy Spirit, divine healing and the second coming, and holds that healing is provided for in Christ's atonement. The charismatic reason is the kingdom: if God's reign has already broken into this age, some of its effects should be visible now. Same hands on the same shoulders, two accounts of why it should work.
How they came to differ
The story comes in three waves, which is where the names come from. The first began in a Bible school in Topeka in 1901 and broke out in 1906 at a mission on Azusa Street in Los Angeles. Out of it came the Pentecostal denominations, formed because the churches these people came from mostly had no room for them.
The second wave stayed put. From 1960 in a parish in Van Nuys, California, and from 1967 at Duquesne University, the same praying, tongues and healing turned up inside Protestant and Catholic congregations whose members had no intention of leaving. That is the charismatic renewal, and it is why there are Catholics who pray in tongues.
The third wave came later and mostly outside everything. The Vineyard, the best known network here, came out of Calvary Chapel rather than out of Pentecostalism: John Wimber's church in Yorba Linda left Calvary Chapel in 1982 over how freely the gifts should be used on a Sunday morning, and took the Vineyard name. Thousands of independent congregations followed the same instinct.
Walking in
In a Pentecostal church there is a denominational name on the sign, and under the freedom the service keeps a shape: worship, a sermon, and an altar call that may be for salvation, for healing or for the baptism in the Spirit. A message in tongues may be given aloud to the whole room, with someone else offering the interpretation. In an independent charismatic church the name is usually one word, the sung worship runs longer, tongues are more likely heard quietly among people praying than announced to the room, and the last stretch belongs to a team praying for whoever comes forward.
Did you know?
The movement got its name in a seminary classroom. C. Peter Wagner called it the third wave of the Holy Spirit, after Pentecostalism and after the renewal inside the older denominations, in 1983, while he and John Wimber were teaching a Fuller Seminary course on signs, wonders and church growth.
What we read
Pentecostal
Assemblies of God, Statement of Fundamental Truths
Articles 7 and 8 on baptism in the Holy Spirit and tongues; 13 and 14 on the Blessed Hope and the millennium.
Pentecostal
Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee), Declaration of Faith
Fourteen single sentences, and a quick way to see what the Pentecostal bodies hold in common.
Charismatic
The Vineyard USA Statement of Faith
Short and online. The sections on the Holy Spirit and on the kingdom are where this tradition parts from Pentecostalism.
Charismatic
George Eldon Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament
Not a charismatic book at all, but the source of the already-and-not-yet kingdom these churches pray out of.
